


What to Do When You Don't Know You've Been Shot

by NephilimEQ



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Complete, Hiding an injury, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, McShep - Freeform, One Shot, Rodney McKay Whump, Sarcasm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 01:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20734256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NephilimEQ/pseuds/NephilimEQ
Summary: The team comes back from a mission and all is well...until Rodney realizes later that he's been shot. Using the one of the five useless brain cells he has, he makes a stupid decision about the whole situation.





	What to Do When You Don't Know You've Been Shot

** What to Do When You Don’t Know You’ve Been Shot **

Rodney stumbled through the trees, ducking as he heard gunfire behind him, trying desperately to keep John and Ronon in sight, while Teyla ran beside him. Time felt rushed and slowed down all at once, a feeling that he was unfortunately very familiar with, he mused to himself as he ducked, quickly stopped and turned to shoot off a few rounds behind him, and then taking off again.

Soon enough, the gate was in sight, and he let out a sigh of relief…but then he heard, as well as saw, a bullet hit a component on the dialer, and he wanted to scream.

No. Of course it couldn’t be that easy.

Just as he broke through the tree line, John yelled over his shoulder as he took out more of the enemy in a hail of bullets, “Fix it, Rodney!”

Unable to help himself, he snipped as he dropped to his knees and got under the relative cover of the DHD, “No, because I _wasn’t_ going to do that,” and got to work on fixing the part of it that had been damaged, just enough so that they could make their call and get through the gate. He now had two warriors and Sheppard all laying down cover fire for him as his fingers worked as fast as they could to put it back together. He felt a pinch in his side, but ignored it, figuring it was just another random pain that he could chalk up to getting older. Last week it had been an inexplicably sore knee and a bruised wrist. He _hated_ getting older.

“Got it!” he shouted, grunting and getting back up to his feet and then quickly dialed the gate.

“Good, cause I’m about to run out of ammo!” John yelled back at him, all three of the inching closer to the gate as the enemy closed in.

Just as the gate opened, they all fell through, Teyla’s shoulder against Rodney’s, shoving him hard enough that he stumbled on his first few steps on the other side, and John yelled as they came into the gateroom, “Coming in hot! Close the iris!” and it slammed into place mere seconds after they’d landed in the room.

They were all breathing hard, except for Ronon, of course, and the first question was of course from Beckett as he ran up to them.

“Anyone injured?”

John glanced over at Rodney and he shook his head, and John answered, “For once, no. Not even a scratch on McKay, miraculously enough,” he added, smirking in the scientist’s direction, but Rodney just rolled his eyes and replied, “Oh, ha ha. You’re an absolute comedian, Sheppard. You know, if it wasn’t for me, we wouldn’t have made it through, right? Once again, despite not wielding the biggest gun, _I’m_ the one who saved the day.”

John just groaned and said, “Yeah, he’s fine.”

Teyla absently patted her hand on his shoulder, and he just barely managed to keep from rudely shrugging it off. He knew better than to snub Teyla. She was the one who showed him the most compassion, after all.

He felt tired and a bit out of breath, but he brushed it off and headed straight for the lab, knowing that John could handle the briefing himself, equations running through his head for the newest adjustments to the jumper. He was relieved to see that no one else was in the lab, so he slumped into the nearest chair…and he winced. Okay, so his side hurt more than he thought. He glanced down and saw red bleeding through his shirt and coat.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself, dragging his jacket off and lifting his shirt so that he could get a better look at what had just happened.

He’d spent enough time having to assess wounds out in the field that he knew that he’d been shot. He reached around and carefully inspected the back of his shirt and felt a matching bloodstain. Okay, that was actually a _good_ thing; the bullet had gone right through him. It must have been when he’d gotten to the ground to fix the DHD, he mused to himself as he quickly pulled off his shirt, wincing only slightly as he did, and walked over to Zelenka’s desk.

Jiggling open the bottom drawer, he pulled out the secret stash of nearly hundred proof vodka the man had squirrelled away from the last Daedalus’ shipment and popped off the top and poured some over a clean portion of his bunched up shirt and dabbed some on both sides of the wound.

Rodney then walked over to Miko’s desk and pulled out her emergency stash of gauze that she’d been keeping on hand ever since she’d had her first mission in the field, even though it had been a pure research mission.

Quickly, he taped himself up, and then went back to his own desk and pulled out a second shirt that he kept on hand for accidents in the lab.

It only hurt slightly as he got his arms into the sleeves and carefully drew it down over his makeshift bandages. No one had to know about this. It was a through and through, and apparently hadn’t really started bleeding until he was in his lab, so it couldn’t really be _that_ bad.

Besides. He didn’t want to bother anyone about it. Sure, normally he’d be the first complaining and screaming for Carson at the first sign of pain…but he’d heard the pride in Sheppard’s voice when he’d said that they had all come back without any injuries. And it was just a through and through. He’d seen Sheppard recover from those in about a week with about the same amount of medical care. He’d be fine.

\--

Okay, so it had been a week and the injury wasn’t _quite_ healed, but at least he’d managed to keep it hidden from the rest of the team. Surprisingly and luckily enough, they hadn’t had any gate missions in that entire span of time, meaning it was even easier to hide it from them. He’d spent most of his time in the lab arguing with Zelenka on power requirements. The man seemed to be under the delusion that they had enough power to handle more of the eastern quadrant, and Rodney took great pleasure explaining exactly why that _wasn’t_ an option.

John visited him on occasion, and he seemed amused every time Rodney reached out and grabbed one of his scientists’ tablets to either fix their equations or just to reprimand them before giving it back to them in a huff of irritation.

On one particular afternoon, Rodney was feeling a bit more tired than usual, so he headed to the mess, empty mug at the ready to fill it back up with the crappy substitute that they called coffee, but was really just some brown bean from P4X-9382 that they’d traded for out of desperation after finding out that it had high levels of caffeine.

John ended up right behind him in line.

“Nice to see you out of your cave, McKay,” he muttered as he grabbed a dry roll of bread and something shaped like an apple.

“Oh, you’re hilarious, Sheppard,” he quipped back at him. “I’ll have you know I have actually gone back to my quarters and slept for at least five hours every night this week,” and at that, John raised an eyebrow, looking mildly impressed. Rodney brushed it off, more focused on getting caffeine. He was really tiring out quickly today, and he wasn’t sure why.

John followed him back to one of the tables and sat down across from him, taking a bite from his “apple”, and then he said, with food in his mouth, “You sure you’ve been sleeping? You look tired.”

Rodney rolled his eyes.

“Yes, I’ve been sleeping,” he bit out, his temper rising. “I just haven’t gotten enough caffeine, today. Zelenka still won’t see reason about the stupid eastern quadrant. I don’t see why it’s so hard to grasp the concept of sixth grade algebra. X does not equal y, therefore, we don’t have enough power to expend for the eastern sector!”

He finished with a flourish, bringing his mug to his lips, and tried to hide his wince as he inadvertently put strain on his injured side. John had been smirking at his comment, but then seemed to notice the shift in his demeanor, however, and gave him a scrutinizing once over.

“You okay, McKay? I mean, I know I said you look tired, but I was being generous. More like death warmed over.” He then leaned across the table and put the back of his hand to Rodney’s forehead, which he quickly batted away with his free hand, but John’s eyes went narrow and he said, “You’re warm. Too warm.”

Rodney brushed him off with, “Miko runs cold and has been keeping the lab warmer than usual. I’ve already told her off all week for her computing errors, I figured I could at least let her have the lab be at a comfortable temperature for her,” but it was obvious that John wasn’t buying it.

“No, Rodney. It’s not that. Hey,” he added, standing up and walking over to him, “How about we get you to Carson? A once over couldn’t hurt…”

Knowing exactly what would happen if he did, Rodney again batted John’s hands away as he tried to put them on his shoulders, and he got back up from the table, taking his coffee with him, and said, “I’m fine, Sheppard. It’s nothing. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going back to the lab with the rest of my caffeine to finish off those lovely little equations that keep this entire city running, as well as working on improvements for your precious jumpers,” and that seemed to do the trick. John stepped back, giving Rodney just enough room to escape at a brisk walk, and he then threw over his shoulder as he left, “Gimme a couple of days and you’ll be at warp one in no time, Sheppard!”

\--

Okay, so…yeah. Rodney wasn’t doing all that great.

He’d woken up in a cold sweat and looked down to see that the bandages already needed to be changed. He’d secreted away some supplies from the infirmary while Carson was at lunch and had been using them on himself for the past few days, but the problem was…they were in his bathroom.

And there was no way he could get out of bed. He’d already tried three times, each time more exhausting than the last.

Taking a deep breath, he tried a fourth time.

With a groan, he managed to get his legs over the side and shakily stood up, slowly inching his way to his bathroom. When he finally made it, he collapsed onto the lid of the toilet and then clumsily reached up onto the shelf and grabbed the supplies with not-so-steady fingers.

Still, he managed to keep it together long enough to change the bandages and then make his way back to his bed, where he laid back down. He wasn’t going anywhere today, that much was for sure, but how was he going to tell them that he was taking a day off without raising suspicion as to his condition? He thought about it for a moment…and then came to the conclusion that he could use his brusque manner to his advantage and scare everyone off.

The only person that might not work on would be John, but he was willing to try.

Picking up his headset from his side table, he tapped it and said, “Hey, Sheppard, I’m taking the day off to work on my own project. It requires a lot of concentration, so, so help me, if anyone tries to bother me for the next twenty-four hours, I will have them sent back to earth and working in Siberia before they even realize what’s hit them! Understood?”

He heard John snort over the comms, and he replied, _“Understood, McKay. I gotta ask, though…what kind of personal project are we talking about, here? Like…end of the world type stuff, or a pretty robot that caters to your every whim type of thing?”_

Rodney rolled his eyes.

“How about it’s a none-of-your-business type of project, Sheppard. Capiche?”

_“Yeah, I capiche. Sheppard out.”_

And with that, he had a whole day to sleep and stuff himself with pain killers. Sounded like a plan.

\--

He woke up he didn’t how much later and groggily opened his eyes…to see that he was no longer in his room. What the hell? He sat up quickly but was gently pushed back down by two familiar hands, and the voice attached to them said, “Don’t you move one muscle, Rodney. I’m still angry at you for no’ comin’ to me when you’d been _shot_,” and he knew that it was Carson.

Rodney groaned and turned his head in the doctor’s direction and complained, “Who moved me out of my room? How did you even find out?”

Carson glared at him as he tapped at the needle now in his hand, removing the air bubbles.

“You can thank Colonel Sheppard for that,” he said, putting something into his IV, which Rodney now noticed went into his right arm. Ugh, he thought to himself as he turned his eyes away from the sight. He _hated_ needles. Carson kept on talking. “He hadn’t heard from you in almost two days, so he used his gene to get into your rooms and found you passed out, feverish, and bleeding from your side.”

Rodney immediately protested.

“Hey, I was not _passed out,_ I was sleeping, and are you telling me that his stupid gene can open up _any_ door? That’s just an invasion of privacy, right there!” he exclaimed, but Carson gave him another glare and snipped, “You had a temperature of one hundred and four, Rodney, so be bloody grateful that he _was_ able to open your door, or we might have lost you. Now,” he asked, rolling his stool back over to his side. “What the hell were you thinking lying about a _gunshot_ wound, Rodney?”

He huffed, but then admitted, “I didn’t know I was shot when we came through the gate. Nothing happened until I was in my lab.”

Carson looked at him incredulously and then asked, “And why the hell didn’t you come to me when you found it? You complain about papercuts, Rodney! And yet you thought a bullet in your side wasn’t worth complaining to me about?”

He rolled his eyes and then explained, “Okay, first of all, the bullet wasn’t _in _me, it was a through and through, so it was less danger. Second of all, I’ve treated those kinds of things before in the field and seen you treat them, as well, so I figured I’d be fine if I just cleaned it out and kept an eye on it for a few days by myself. I was doing just fine up until yesterday,” he finished, and Carson just shook his head.

“So help me, you have no idea how lucky you are that you didn’t get septic,” he muttered under his breath as he got up from the stool and moved to the medical cabinet.

He then pulled out a bottle of pills and put it on the small tray attached to his bed.

“You stay here until I deem you fit to leave, and then you take one of these every twelve hours. Understood?”

Rodney swallowed and nodded. Yes, he understood. That didn’t mean that he had to like it, of course. In fact, he fully planned on complaining the entire time. However, as he adjusted himself on the covers, he wondered where John was. Sure, John had found him, but how had he gotten him to the infirmary? But first, how long had he been _in _the infirmary?

“Uh, Carson?”

“Hm?”

“How long have I been here?”

“Three days.”

Rodney gaped and then managed to recover enough to get out, “Three…three _days?_ And I’ve been passed out this whole time?”, to which Carson gave him a look and said, “I believe the term is ‘sleeping’, Rodney. Now, lean back,” he asked, gently pushing his shoulder from where Rodney had half sat up in bed at hearing the amount of time he’d been in the infirmary.

Finally, he asked, “How…how exactly did I _get_ here? I mean, you said Sheppard found me, but…that’s all I know. Did he get Ronon to carry me again? Like that one time on that horribly crappy planet where I sprained my ankle and he decided to humiliate me by throwing me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry all the way back to the gate, all three miles, without breaking a sweat?”

The doctor smirked.

“Nope. Actually, when the colonel found you, _he_ carried you here. Bridal style.”

“He _what?”_

\--

Rodney had fallen back asleep and woke up an indeterminate amount of time later with an extremely dry mouth and the urge to reach down and scratch at the bandage on his side. He shifted up on the bed, bemoaning the fact that he wasn’t on his prescribed mattress, and then gently probed under his shirt. The bandage was dry.

Well, that much was good news at least.

He looked to the tray and saw a glass of water had been put on it, and so he slowly sat up and moved forward, groaning as his side strained as he tried to reach for the glass.

Just before he could grab it, however, a voice came from the dark, saying, “Lean back before you blow a stitch, McKay, I’ll get it for you,” and Rodney felt an immediate flush cross his face, heat suffusing his cheeks as John stepped up to the bed and grabbed the glass of water.

He held it just beyond his reach, however, and stared at him.

Rodney glanced up once and then looked back down.

“So…got any other injuries you’d like to tell me about?” he drawled, still holding the glass hostage as Rodney licked his lips.

His irritation bubbled to the surface and he snapped back at him, no longer feeling embarrassed, “Well, I have a feeling that I’m about to get thoroughly burned, but other than that, no. So, will you just give me the damn glass of water? I’ll die of dehydration faster than I will of this little bullet wound,” but that seemed to be exactly the wrong thing to say, as John put the glass back down and began to gesture widely with his arms, his face more stormy than Rodney had ever seen it.

“You were _shot_, and you didn’t _tell_ me about it? What’s the matter with you, McKay?” He continued to yell. “And the fact that you hid it for nearly a _week…_god, if you weren’t injured, I’d smack you!”

He rolled his eyes at that and muttered under his breath, “Ah, more violence, that’s always the answer,” but apparently John heard it and he locked his eyes onto Rodney’s and hissed out, “McKay, now is not the time. Do you have any _idea_ what it was like to have to force my way into your room and then find you lying on your bed barely breathing? Seeing blood on your sheets? I…I thought you were dead, Rodney…”

His voice trailed off and that was when he noticed just how distraught John really was.

He looked like he hadn’t slept in forever: dark circles under his bloodshot eyes, his clothes were wrinkled as if he’d been sleeping in a chair for days, his five o’clock shadow was no longer a shadow, reaching more towards eleven o’clock, and his hair was even in more disarray than usual.

He looked like shit.

“You look like shit,” he voiced out loud, and John snorted, looking annoyed and amused at the same time.

“Yeah, well, that’s your fault,” he said, absently patting his knee and then sitting down on the edge of his bed. He looked down at the floor and then back up at him, putting his hands between his knees, and then added, “You’re a pain in my ass, Rodney, you know that?”

Rodney shrugged.

“I do what I can to keep you entertained, colonel. Glad I could be of service,” and John snorted.

They sat there for a long moment, and then John reached out and grabbed the glass of water and handed it to him, which Rodney took from him gratefully, their fingers brushing over each other as it was passed off. He took a long, grateful sip…and then started coughing, unable to get a breath, and John got up and hit him on the back, stopping his coughing.

Rodney looked up and said, after he caught his breath, “Hey, you got your wish. You got to hit me. Feel better?”

“Much.”

They shared an amused look.

John stared at him a moment longer, and his hand reached out, almost as if he wasn’t even aware of it, and gently carded through Rodney’s hair, his fingers dropping down until they were on his neck, and then he gently squeezed. Unsure of what to do, Rodney reached up his own hand and wrapped his fingers around John’s and squeezed back.

Something passed between the two of them…

…and then it was over with a loud clang from Carson as he came into the room and opened the medicine cabinet on the far wall.

“Okay, Rodney, time for your first dose. After this, I’m going to let you out for a walk, but no more than ten minutes.” He then turned to face them and said, “Ah, colonel, good to see you back. Care to accompany our patient on his walk? Make sure he doesn’t make a break for his lab?”

Rodney rolled his eyes, but John suddenly stiffened and then smoothly dropped his hand from Rodney’s neck, deftly putting both of his hands behind his back, and said, “I’m sure he’s learned his lesson. Besides, I’ve got rounds to get to. Thanks for patching him, doc,” and then he briskly walked out of the room.

Rodney looked after him in confusion, barely noticing the horse pill he swallowed down with now tepid water.

As Carson helped him out of bed, he asked, “What did you mean? Good to see him back?”

Beckett smiled and answered, “Oh, he’s been by your side non-stop for the past three days. He only left to get updates from Lorne and check in with Sam and give them updates as to your condition. Now, now, take it easy,” he said, steadying Rodney as his foot slipped at hearing that John had been at bedside the entire time.

All three days? Had…was Rodney the reason why John looked like he hadn’t slept for far too long?

Once he was on his feet, Carson said, “Okay, the rest is up to you. Take your time, and if you feel out of breath, come right back here or get someone to help you back. Understood?”

Rodney absently nodded, still thinking on John.

As he made his way down the hallway in his bare feet, one hand on the wall to steady himself, he thought back to what John had said about finding him in his room, and how he’d looked when he’d said it. His voice had been tight, almost as if he’d been trying to keep from crying, and he’d looked completely torn, like…like if anything had happened to Rodney, it would have finished him off. He knew that look because he’d only seen it once before…when Rodney had nearly died with the body shield.

He felt out of breath, so he paused and rested against the wall, nodding politely at anyone who walked by, firmly entrenched in his thoughts.

Did he…did he care about him? Like…more than he was supposed to?

Rodney wasn’t blind, after all, and had seen how quickly John had closed himself off when Carson had come into the room; it had been so quick and so practiced, that Rodney slowly realized that he might have seen the real John Sheppard for a few brief moments.

And that the real John Sheppard liked him.

More than he should.

He suddenly felt a lightness in his chest that he hadn’t felt in years, and he smiled at realizing exactly what the feeling was.

Well…at least _some_thing good had come out of this whole ordeal.


End file.
